Designing a Basic Model for Talent Management System

The purpose of this research is to provide a basic model for a Talent Management System (TMS). In the present study, by conducting a systematic review and critisizing talent management models, it is tried to provide a fundamental theoretical model that be suitable for all organizations with any structure. The findings of the research showed that TMS should include at least three key items of attraction & selection, training & development and retaining.

Talented employees are key sources of success and the power of competitive advantage in any organization. Therefore, many organizations are focused on hiring, developing and retaining them. Retention and managing the talents help companies succeed and play a key role in retaining market leadership and development. In recent years, various models of talent management have been presented, most of which, show merely an ideal talent management condition regardless of the actual circumstances of the organization. Therefore, it seems necessary to develop a comprehensive conceptual model and do an overview of existing talent management research.  Therefore, a comprehensive and extensive literature review of talent management is developed.  Moreover, there is no consensus among academics on definition of talent and talent management. According to the literature review, we define talent as follows: “A person with specific abilities (knowledge, skills, experience) who is committed to his or her job and helps the organization achieve its goals.” Talent management is “identifying key posts and analyzing the talent gap to meet the shortage of labor market demand and then the process of recruiting and selecting, training and developing, and retaining current and future employees”.

In this research, a systematic review is done and models of talent management are studied and a fundamental theoretical pattern for organizations with any type of structure is presented. For this purpose, to identify and extract papers, systematic review was limited to two databases, including Scopus and The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Both databases have reliable sources and are used in a large number of studies. Then, through a systematic review, studies that focused on the design of a talent management model (2006–2018) and had a non-empirical or semi-empirical nature were extracted and reviewed. Therefore, theses, editor's notes, book chapters and books were not included in this review. Due to a common process, conference papers were also ignored. In this research, the term "talent management" was used for systematic review. In total, the articles related to the study of talent management design consisted of 37 articles, 31 of which were removed due to overlap (similar items), finally the talent management model based on 6 articles, all of which were published in the most prestigious international journals, were selected.

According to the research findings, each of the talent management models had a number of shortcomings, including not mentioning some dimensions and components of talent management (i.e. recruitment and selection, training and development, maintenance, evaluation, gap analysis and where do the organizations select the talents they needed) in some of the models. Moreover, in some papers, they focused on talented people and ignored other employees. Based on the research findings, the organization's sensitive positions must firstly be identified and qualifications be matched to these positions. Then, it is suggested to evaluate the talents inside the organization and outside the organization and provide a pool of the talents needed by organization. After the talent pool is formed, the organization will provide the right people with the key posts from the talent pool. Likewise, in designing a talent management systems’ map for the organization, all three key components of talent management model (i.e. recruitment and selection, training and development, and retention) should be considered and emphasized in HR planning. Finally, it is suggested to organizations in different industries to focus their attention on providing the conditions and improving these components.